Keynote Address: Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

Date: 

Wednesday, February 9, 2022, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

Zoom Webinar and YouTube

Amb. Marie Yovanovitch discusses Ukraine's democracy, sovereignty, and the U.S. role.

Marie Yovanovitch event poster

Thirty Years of Ukrainian Sovereignty and Democracy

Amb. Marie Yovanovitch

The United States has been one of Ukraine’s key allies since its independence in 1991. With the outbreak of war in 2014, Russia violated Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity; now, the threat of greater aggression across a number of domains looms. In her remarks, Amb. Marie Yovanovitch will discuss Ukraine’s sovereignty, democracy, and the U.S. role. 

Note: This event is part of the 2022 TCUP Conference "Beyond Borderland: 30 Years of Ukrainian Sovereignty" and is also part of our regular Seminar in Ukrainian Studies. Registration is required to join on Zoom; you may also watch the live stream on YouTube.

About the Speaker

Amb Marie Yovanovitch
Photo credit: Jennifer Watkins

Marie Yovanovitch is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University. Previously, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (2016-2019), the Republic of Armenia (2008-2011) and the Kyrgyz Republic (2005-2008). She also served as the Dean of the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State and as the Deputy Commandant and International Advisor at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National Defense University. Earlier she served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where she coordinated policy on European and global security issues. Before that, she was the bureau’s Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for issues related to the Nordic, Baltic, and Central European countries. 

In 2003-2004, Ambassador Yovanovitch was the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Prior to that, she was the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. Within the Department of State, Ambassador Yovanovitch has worked on the Russia desk, the Office of European Security Affairs, and the Operations Center. She has also worked overseas at the U.S. Embassies in Moscow, London, Ottawa, and Mogadishu. 

A Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ambassador Yovanovitch has earned the Senior Foreign Service Performance Award eight times and the State Department’s Superior Honor Award on nine occasions. She is also the recipient of two Presidential Distinguished Service Awards and the Secretary’s Diplomacy in Human Rights Award. In 2020, Georgetown University granted Ambassador Yovanovitch the Trainor Award for Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy, the University of Indiana granted her the inaugural Richard G. Lugar Award, and Pen America honored her with the 2020 PEN/Benenson Courage Award. In 2021, she received the Morgenthau Award from the Armenian Assembly of America. 

Ambassador Yovanovitch is a graduate of Princeton University where she earned a BA in History and Russian Studies. She studied at the Pushkin Institute and received an MS from the National Defense University.

 

Introduction by Benjamin Schmitt, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Project Development Scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA); former European Energy Security Advisor in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources

Moderated by Emily Channell-Justice, Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University